Hamas

Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, was an Islamist organization in Palestine that sought to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state ruled by Sunni sharia law. Founded in 1987, it first fought in the First Intifada before becoming the ruling Palestinian party in the Gaza Strip and launching rocket attacks against Israel. Its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades took part in attacks against Israel, and Hamas was labeled as a terrorist group by the European Union, United States, Saudi Arabia, and other nations.

History
The Islamic Resistance Movement, known in Arabic as "Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah", was nicknamed "Hamas" after its Arabic acronym. The covenant was signed in 1987 soon after the First Intifada broke out, formed as a Muslim Brotherhood splintegroup that rejected its pledge of nonviolence and the ceasefire with Israel. In 1988 the Hamas Charter was affirmed, and it pledged to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. Hamas launched several attacks against Israel during the Intifada, and in 1994 they adopted suicide bombing as a tactic. In 2001 they followed this up with rocket attacks from their base in the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, but the Israeli "Iron Dome" anti-missile technology allowed for the Israelis to shoot down the terrorist missiles. Most of their rockets were home-made Qassem rockets, but they were also armed with missiles by Iran, the archenemy of Israel.

Hamas defeated the secularist Fatah party in the January 2006 Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections, and the West offered to recognize Hamas as the new ruling authority if it would renounce violence. Hamas refused, so the West broke off relations with Hamas and Israel sanctioned the Hamas leaders. In 2007, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, leading to Israel and Egypt blockading Gaza. They began raids into Israel by digging tunnels where they could protect their fighters, store ammunition, and enter Israel from the Gaza Strip, and in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) made it a goal of theirs to destroy the tunnels. The Israelis succeeded in weakening Hamas in the attack on Gaza, but in the 2015 Knife Intifada Hamas, Fatah (with whom it reconciled in 2015), the PFLP, and Islamic Movement in Israel launched attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers, leading to an outbreak of violence in a wave of terror.